Hiya Kellykins,
Listen to Jimlap, mwright1985 and CamG.
1600 quid will get you more than enough diving equipment to get started, especially if you already have a suit. It's about as much as I paid excluding suits.
Your 5.5 suit (from your profile) is going to be a wee chilly for local diving in anything other than summer, though. The diving mostly in summer thing will change, trust me...
As a Suggestion for equipment - other than that it is cheaper to buy something for 400 rather than buy for 200 and replace it with a new one for 300- assuming you are going to dive in European waters, you could consider the following, based on mine and others experience:
Regulators:
Apeks (UK Made) - Cold Water resilient, and you usually get good deals on them if you shop around. Alls models are good, the main difference is price
. For Sub-10°C Cold water - Europe below the thermocline, in other words, get two 1st stages :blessing:
Figure about 500 quid for two. If you buy second hand, send them in for servicing and check-up first!!!
Alternative: Mares Abyss, mail order from Italy for a good price. Same difference in cost. Either will work very well. Apeks seem to tolerate service denial better (in my club there is a diver who has a 1500 dive / 4 year old Apeks ATX100 that has never seen service
), My Mares regs tend to throw high-pressure valve seats every three years or so, if I don't service them (hence actually servicing them).
Throw in a gauge for another 50, 70 if you like having a back-up depth gauge.
BCD:
Buy something that fits! Most makes are reasonably good, and you can always sell them on. Seaquest, Mares, Cressi, or AP-Valves (expensive) are the names to look for. There are generic and female-specific models. Couple of thoughts: Don't get a funky indeflator (Airtrim, i3, FCS or whatever they call them now) jacket, it's a solution looking for a problem, in my opinion. The regular inflator works just fine and is always in the same place if you have a jacket that fits and it is adjusted properly. Integrated weights are the way forward. As an alternative, consider a backplate/wing/DIR-Harness arrangement, like what the technical divers use. It grows with you, can be adjusted, and has few failure points, but requires thought on the surface. 400 should get you a high end deal.
Computer:
User exchangeable batteries. :blessing:
Wrist mounts are easier to keep an eye on, consoles get lost less.
Most people I dive with like Suuntos. I have never lost my Gekko. The battery has lasted for 5 years so far.
Consider either the €180 Gekko (luminescent) or the €220 Vyper (backlit), worry about other features later.
Lamp:
You will want a diving torch sooner or later. The German-made Schulz FWT GS35 LED or GS 45 LED are both good lamps, depending if you prefer the classic torch style, or the regular diving-lamp handle. About €100-€150. Alternatives are the pistol-grip Princeton Tec Lamps for similar money. Halcyon / TillyTec / Greenforce/ Salvo umbilical lamps are nice, but not needed right away and quite expensive - you need something to look forward to for next Christmas!
Tank:
Skip if you are doing tank+weight dives with a commercial centre. Otherwise buy a steel 12L (or 15L if you can carry it) tank rated to 232bar with a double aqualung din V-valve. If second hand, then get it inspected right away by someone who knows what they are doing! Some newly tested tanks I've seen were never dried properly, and were effectively scrap 5 months later. You need to take a bit more care with steel in salt water, but the better diving it gives you is worth it. About €200 tops if you shop around and haggle.
This should bring you to about 1400 quid, giving you enough to buy a couple of spring straps (€18 from dirtydivers.nl), an SMB, a knife (Wenkoa Squeeze-Lock Titanium FTW!) and other sundry small parts (weights, O-ring-kit, diving, diver's multitool, bags, diving, boxes, more diving, an adjustable spanner and more diving)
Hope this helps you plan for spending loads of money...
Now add a dry suit (€700 Intruder or €1200 Santo), a second lamp (€600 for a proper halogen job, to better see the lovely red colours, or a proper €1500 Salvo), and a Rebreather (to not scare away the fish, €3000-€METRICARSELOAD), and you can probably plan for any spare change that you can accumulate within the next lifetime or two...
Before you spend money, research the price on the net, and ask here, you could save a lot of money and hassle. If you go hassle the LDS, 20% extra on top of the online price for them being there to support you is not unfair - they need to make money to stay in business.
Gerbs
